<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Ace of Hearts by bee_s</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24817987">Ace of Hearts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bee_s/pseuds/bee_s'>bee_s</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Death, Dark Reylo, F/M, Mention of FinnPoe, Post-TRoS, Rey Needs A Hug, SPOILERS for TROS, ben solo in this universe is not redeemed, ben solo is a mess and also not nice, but by this point you should probably know, but you dont choose who you love, force ghost!kylo ren - Freeform, jedi master!rey, rey finds her own redemption, sad in space (tm), tw: depression, tw: eating disorders</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:49:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>822</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24817987</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bee_s/pseuds/bee_s</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Exegol, he comes to her in dreams.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ace of Hearts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by "A Meeting" by Wendell Berry ––</p><p>In a dream I meet<br/>my dead friend. He has,<br/>I know, gone long and far,<br/>and yet he is still the same<br/>for the dead are changeless.<br/>They grow no older.<br/>It is I who have changed,<br/>grown strange to what I was.<br/>Yet I, the changed on,<br/>ask: ‘How you been?’<br/>He grins and looks at me.<br/>‘I been eating peaches<br/>off some mighty fine trees.’</p><p>see also "Deadcrush" by Alt-J &amp; "Stay Away" by Charli XCX.</p><p>Again, to be safe: //trigger warning\\ for eating disorders and depression.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After Exegol, he comes to her in dreams.</p><p> </p><p>He stands tall under a sky scarred with lightning. <em> Rey </em>, he says, inaudible in a cacophony of thunders, just the shape of his soft mouth around her name – and she traces the place where his scar used to be and cries, and cries, until she washes away in the tide of her tears. The darkness billows around him and swallows him whole, and she wakes with the ghost of his skin at the end of her fingertips.</p><p> </p><p>Finn and Poe marry on the first day of spring. She is their best man; BB-8 carries the rings. There are blossoms in the air, and the sweet light smell of new beginnings and fresh hope and tenderness. She can feel her rage throb in the palms of her hands and hopes no one else can see it in the way she embraces them. The reception ends with her speech to the happy couple – and she loves them both, she loves them more than anything in the whole world, but once she’s clear of her duties Rey slips away into the forest with her staff and enough food for three days. In the solitude her heart calls out for him, and in the deep silent night he comes to her, in brewing storm clouds and wind-felled trees, in the stench of fresh kill and stiffening flesh. Poe finally tracks her down a week after she had gone missing, and when he hugs her he can feel her ribs poking out into his chest.</p><p> </p><p>Rey heads to the sands again, back to where it all began, and searches in the heat-stroke water-starved empty-headedness until she finds him. He gazes at her hungrily: healthy, well-fed, and strong; his dark hair floats around his face in a halo. <em> Rey </em> , he whispers, carrying her to the well with her head cradled against his chest. <em> You must not forget to live </em>. She wakes to the lonely winds, who tell her to go home, home to the ones that she loves.</p><p> </p><p>The New Republic calls on her to start an academy, and she balks at the mantle until the children begin to kill; they are offspring of the force, unwieldy and frightened. She takes a handful and teaches them how to feel the heartbeat of the galaxy. She teaches them to flow with the energy around them and, in time, she heeds her own words too. In her dreams she talks with the ghosts of the past and they teach her to be patient and wise and earnest and true. She spurns the Jedi way but embraces their quietness. She doesn’t ask a single child to take up the saber. She learns to seek peace in herself.</p><p> </p><p>But when she stumbles upon a dark power on a mission to recover Jedi holocrons, it is not enough. Disappearing into the wilderness for eleven days, free-fall, she tumbles into the vile cold anger of her heart, and in the darkest vestiges of her mind she finds him once more. He takes her into his arms because the dead are changeless, the dead are forever, and she has never loved anyone more than this tragedy of a man, so much that it tears her in two. <em> Rey</em>, he murmurs against her bare belly, <em> you must live, </em>and she awakens in the morning, on the twelfth day, in the light, alone.</p><p> </p><p>Finn stands watch on her bedside for three days straight. There’s a drip in her arm and a patchwork of bacta that cocoons her. <em> What were you thinking, </em> he demands, over and over, and she never has any honest answers, only a string of half-truths. <em> My darling</em>, she finally replies, <em> I found my love again and he nearly killed me. </em> Finn takes her hand. <em> But you are loved here, you are so very loved. </em></p><p> </p><p>She watches her belly with hope – if Anakin could be born of the force itself – but her only children come across the black in foreign ships to be taught not to self-destruct, and in their purity she finds a purpose. She has sweet long dinners with her friends and grows steady and still. Her ghostly masters sit in conference and honour her strength, her wisdom, although she never leaves their presence without wishing a certain tall dark-haired man was in their college. But life beckons her and wraps her in love and light again, the kind she has searched for in all her years, and eventually the dark corners of her heart are beaten back.</p><p> </p><p>He comes to her in a dream. He sits with her in the light of a setting sun, and says, <em> My darling </em> , <em> I have loved you all my life </em> . She doesn’t turn her head to look at him. The sun holds her spirit. <em> I walk in the light now, Ben </em>. He kisses her head, and when she turns, he is gone. The long grass whispers her name.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>